The rougher and readier cousin of Marketing magazine. You'll find ideas, gossip, commentary and a touch of cynicism as we flex our journalistic muscles beyond the constraints of our monthly mag.

Monday, January 12, 2009

The best and the worst brand ambassadors

Interesting story in The New York Times recently about how Barack Obama is the perfect brand ambassador for Blackberry, and it isn’t costing the company one cent.

They estimated that Obama could earn anything from US$25 million to US$50 million if he was allowed to earn from promoting Blackberry.

This led me to think of other good and not-so-good celebrity brand ambassadors, who don’t earn a red penny from their unintentional plugging of a brand, product or way of life.

There’s Angela Jolie and Brad Pitt, who are walking ads for adoption. English premiership footballers can be always seen cruising in expensive sports cars such as Ferrari and Porshe, although if you think of Cristiano Ronaldo’s driving ability lately maybe that’s not the best partnership.

So who would be the unlikelest celebrities you would like to see plugging a particular brand?How about George W Bush and pretzels, or Bill Clinton and Viagra? Or Mel Gibson preaching about the dangers of drink driving? It would be great to see Maradona preaching the virtues of the likes of Weight Watchers or Fitness First.